Mondays with Mora

Monday is the day that NFL coaches across the country stand up in front of lecterns and assess what happened the day before. Fifteen will be trying to disperse credit for a victory, 15 will be dealing with questions about just who should be blamed for a loss. The remaining two coaches will be playing in the Monday night game.

Seattle coach Jim Mora began Monday's press conference by assessing the situation of two injured players:

DT Cory Redding suffered a concussion in Sunday's game. "We'll just have to see how he is later in the week, but we'll be careful in that regards," Mora said.

RB Julius Jones missed his second game because of a bruised long. He is expected to play this week, but there's no guarantee of that. "Julius was a game-day decision not to play," Mora said of his status Sunday. "[He] was still experiencing tenderness to the touch, pain, and the medical staff and Julius didn't feel like he would be able to sustain the blows that a running back takes. I don't know where he will be this week. Hopefully, he'll be ready to play, but I can't say with any certainty that will be the case."

Will Jones be the starter this week?

"I can't answer that right now," Mora said. "We'll just have to see where we are when the week goes on."

That uncertainty is based on health, though, and not the pecking order.

"Julius is our starting running back," Mora said.

So if Jones is healthy, he will start.

"If he's fully healthy," Mora said, "and he's had a full week of practice and everybody feels comfortable that he can bear the brunt of the workload that he would need to handle to be effective then he would start. But that being said, Justin has earned the right to carry the ball off of what he did at Arizona and what he did this week. So we're going to make sure he gets touches, but if we can have two guys run the ball effectively, then that's going to help us."

Hassel-cat

"That was Matt being a heads-up, smart quarterback aware of the situation," Mora said. "That was a nice play by him. Part of being an effective running team is having a threat out the back door, and whether it be a bootleg or a quarterback who can tuck it away and run. I think through the game, Matt got the feeling that they weren't respecting his tremendous running ability out the back side and he decided to pull it down and go, and it really was a good time to do it."

Basically, Hasselbeck was looking at the left defensive end, who was pursuing the running back hard inside. That left the defense vulnerable to a bootleg, and the result was a 19-yard rush.

Finally, a report that president Tim Ruskell was told he won't be re-signed

Q: Can you comment on the reports that there might be a change with general manager?

Mora: "I haven't seen those reports, I'm sorry."

Q: Has nothing been addressed with your staff and the players, then?

Mora: No. We're pretty involved with St. Louis Rams cleanup and San Francisco prep. We live in a cave. We're cavemen.